Ghost of a Chance
by Wilusa
Summary: Sequel to 'Proof of Life.' A special situation gives an Avatar a unique opportunity to spy on the Crowe household.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: Carnivale and its canon characters are the property of HBO and the show's producers; no copyright infringement is intended.

_**Note added 12/9/06:**_ For a _full_, clear picture of my latest take on Ben's killing of Justin and the events of the next day, I'd advise reading "Dead of Night," "Choices," "Proof of Life," "Retribution," and "Ghost of a Chance," in that order.

_**Note added 12/23/07:**_ I should, however, explain that "Dead of Night," "Proof of Life," and "Ghost of a Chance" are in the "Look, even something as unlikely as this isn't irreconcilable with known canon!" category of fan fiction. "Choices" and "Retribution," on the other hand, reflect my actual speculation about the direction the story probably would have taken. One detail in "Retribution" has been rendered AU by later-established canon; for the correct canon, see my more recent fanfic "Trinity."

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"Describe New Canaan," Hack Scudder demanded. "Describe Crowe's home."

"Why?" Ruthie sounded as befuddled as she looked. "We're racin' to get away from the place, an' you agree that's what we should do. So why do you care what it looks like?"

He forced himself to rein in his impatience. _She has every right to be confused_, he reminded himself. _Confused, frustrated, and most of all, scared._

The last six hours had been nerve-wracking for everyone, so hectic that Hack still hadn't found time to wash his face.

Samson, anticipating a police pursuit, had decided to split the troupe into three sections and get them onto separate roads as soon as possible - the idea being that each of them would pass itself off as an entire, small carnival. None of them would own up to having been in New Canaan, using the name "Carnivale," or ever having heard of either Samson himself or a healer called Benjamin St. John. The name "Carnivale" was painted over or covered up wherever it appeared. The Ferris wheel posed a problem: its vaunted size would be a giveaway. So parts that could be disguised as something else were divided among the sections, while its cars were hidden in a ravine, hopefully to be retrieved at a later date.

The Management trailer was now, ostensibly, part of an outfit known as "Casey's Curiosities." A man called Stumpy had been drafted to play the role of owner Mick Casey. The other sections were headed by a longtime barker named Jasper and a phony "he-she" named Bert. Samson had told Hack he'd chosen the men for their glibness, and Ruthie had confirmed that they were the best possible choices.

Police had indeed shown up, and grilled Stumpy for upwards of an hour. Apparently, he'd carried out his assignment with flying colors. Hack had helped, by using his powers to make the officers perceive this peculiar inner room as empty. Later, Stumpy had informed the group in the room - then including Samson - that his interrogators had told _him_ maddeningly little, never explaining why they were looking for the carnival that had been in New Canaan.

By now Samson was back in the lead truck, presumably pondering when and how to go about reassembling the troupe. But Hack and Ruthie had faced another problem, when Ben began moaning and thrashing about. They'd managed to soothe him, but not before his abdominal wound had reopened and he'd lost more blood.

_Yes, I should be __**very**__ patient with Ruthie._

But before he could explain his interest in the settlement they'd left behind, she said contritely, "I'm sorry, Hack. I know you must have some good reason. It's just so hard for me to take my eyes, or my mind, off Ben right now..."

"I understand." The unconscious youth meant more to _him_ than life itself. And he suspected he wasn't the only one who felt that way. He studied Ruthie's careworn face, then said gently, "You're in love with him, aren't you?"

"Yeah." She hung her head. "I s'pose you think that's awful. Knowin' I'm older than you, let alone your son."

"Not at all," he said firmly. "Love is a good thing, always. And, Ruthie, I've been able to touch Ben's mind at times. Not _read_ his mind - but I have been able to sense that he loves you too."

"He d-does?" The tremor in her voice spoke volumes about the pain Ben had unwittingly caused her.

"Yes. He only pulled away from you because he was afraid of putting you in danger." He knew he should add a cautionary note. "It may not be a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. He may even be capable of loving two women at the same time. But he does love you..." He hesitated. Then his voice dropped to a whisper. "In a way I never could."

There were tears in Ruthie's eyes now. " 'Cause you _are_ a one-woman man. For life."

"Maybe." He sighed, then made a face. "Or maybe it's not as romantic as all that. Maybe I just met you - and later, Becca Donovan - too soon after Flora.

"In any case, it's a very good sign that Ben was able to sip a little water." That breakthrough had come only minutes ago. "If you can get fluids into him, to make up for some of the blood he's lost, he should be able to survive without solid food till he's closer to consciousness." He didn't voice his further thought: _God knows when that will be._

Aloud, he went on, "So we can stop worrying about him for the moment - and I do need information about New Canaan. I'll try to explain why. First, do you understand what I told Samson this morning? About there being a new Dark Prophet?"

"Not really," Ruthie admitted. "I ain't even sure what a Prophet is. But it was somethin' about you havin' discovered your blood is red, when you thought it should be blue."

"That's right. A Prophet is the most powerful Avatar of each of the two kinds, Light and Dark. And he has blue blood. Ben is the Light Prophet. I was the Dark Prophet - much as I hated the idea - until Justin Crowe, uh, killed me."

He wasn't sure how to explain what had come next. But Ruthie came to his rescue by saying, "An' Ben brought you back to life, somehow. Never mind how. You thought you shoulda become Prophet again?"

"Yes. But only," he stressed, "because Crowe is dead! I thought I was the only living Dark Avatar. My blood being red proves there's another one, almost certainly a son of Crowe's. He's more powerful than I am. And he could be in his late twenties, more mature than Ben."

"Jesus." Ruthie shuddered. "Okay, I can see why that's important. But New Canaan?"

"He might be there. It's the first place I should look."

It took a few seconds for that to sink in. Then Ruthie said in a suddenly shaky voice, "You're volunteerin' to go look for him?"

Hack said quietly, "I _have to_ look for him, Ruthie."

After a pause, she gave a slow nod. "Then we should have Samson stop the convoy now, so we won't be any further away than need be when you start drivin' back."

"No." Looking her in the eye, he said steadily, "I can make a quick visit without driving back. I may be able to find out whether it's worth spending more time there. Whether there is or isn't a young man who seems to be taking over the place."

Ruthie took a deep breath. "Okay, this you _gotta_ explain. How can you 'visit' without drivin' back?"

"Have you ever heard of...well, the term used most is astral projection. That's misleading - suggests it has something to do with astrology, and it doesn't. But it's the name that's caught on in recent years. Have you heard of it?"

She shook her head. "No."

"All right." _How to explain it?_ "Humans," he began slowly, "possess a sort of second body, that isn't material. All humans, not just Avatars. It's like a ghost or spirit, except that it exists while the person is alive. Sometimes when you're dreaming, your consciousness may slip into that 'astral body' and drift away, actually travel somewhere. But not often! Most dreams are just dreams."

Ruthie was gaping at him - but in amazement, not disbelief.

When she didn't question that much, he went on. "Some people can learn to project themselves to other places, in their astral bodies, while they're awake. The skill comes more easily to Avatars than to non-Avatars. Though I'd guess there have been Avatars who've never done it, never heard of such a thing.

"I'm fairly good at it. But I need to visualize where I'm going, and I never saw anything back there except the shed where I was held prisoner, and a road with nothing unique about it. If you can give me a general description of New Canaan and Crowe's home, I should be able to go back in my astral body and see what's going on."

Now Ruthie had found her voice. "You can 'project' yourself out of a movin' trailer? That's all this distance from New Canaan, rushin' away from it the whole time?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"While you're gone, will I still see your normal body?"

"Yes. But I'll appear to be in a trance. Asleep with my eyes open."

"How will you get back _here?_" In sudden alarm, she continued, "What if you can't?"

"I'll snap back into my physical body at some point," he assured her. "Not much the worse for wear. Ideally, I'll stay in New Canaan till I will myself back. But I may lose control and snap back before I want to. If there's an emergency and you _need_ me back, a good shake or a slap should bring me out of the trance."

"Will people in New Canaan be able to see you?" Before he could answer, she had yet another question. "Can you be hurt? Or killed?"

"They won't be able to see me unless I want them to," he said patiently. "I can make one person see me and another, standing right next to him, not see me, if that's what I want. Or I can make someone see a form that looks nothing like the way I really look." _I can do those things even when I'm not in my astral body. But there's only so much Ruthie needs to know._

"About injury or death - no, my astral body can't be harmed. But my physical body can be, and it's at more risk when I'm not in it. Fortunately, I'll be leaving it with you."

They exchanged wry smiles. Then Ruthie asked, "Can you take time to clean it up a mite first?"


	2. Chapter 2

Fifteen minutes later Hack was standing on a hilltop, looking down at the hodgepodge of tents and shanties that made up New Canaan. He turned to face a rambling farmhouse; just as Ruthie had said, peeling paint belied what she'd heard was an expensively remodeled interior.

_Perfect. Right where I wanted to be._

He knew his astral body was invisible. _Ruthie probably wishes I was invisible - and odorless! - back in the trailer, too._ Washing his body had been easy enough, since the trailer had plenty of soap and water. But clothing was another matter. He couldn't have obtained a change without halting the convoy, and he wasn't willing to do that. The more distance between Ben and New Canaan, the better.

He wasn't seeing any remarkable activity outdoors, so he headed for the house. Not surprisingly, a police car was parked in the driveway.

Hack could have entered simply by passing through the wall - could even have conjured up a phantom "door" to be opened, if he was more comfortable with that. But force of habit led him to treat the wall as a real barrier, and make his first observations through a parlor window.

Inside, two uniformed officers were talking with a distraught-looking middle-aged woman. _Crowe's sister Iris_, he realized. Samson had told him about the sister, saying she'd apparently welcomed Justin's death. It was unclear whether she'd welcomed it for personal reasons, or because she understood what he really was. Either way, she doubtless wasn't sharing her true feelings with the police.

The only other person in the room was a young woman, whose hovering in the background suggested she was nothing more than a maid. A somewhat dirty and rumpled maid...but this wasn't a normal day for anyone.

Hack decided to slip inside, unseen, so he could hear what Iris was telling the police. But as he tried to take another step toward the house, he found himself involuntarily drifting backward. _Wh-what? Is Ruthie trying to pull me back to the trailer?_

_No._ He realized this was something different. His head was spinning. He was losing his moorings in time and place -

And then, suddenly, he _was_ back in the trailer, sitting up in his body, and wiping a smear of disgustingly _red_ blood off his face. "Damn!"

"What happened?" Ruthie asked urgently. "Your nose is bleedin'. Is that a problem? Did it bring you back?"

"No," he said wearily, "I'm all right. Nosebleeds are common when I do this. It seems I'm just not as good at it as I used to be. This is one way my powers were diminished when I lost the Prophethood. I use them so seldom that it's taken me till now to recognize a difference."

"So you won't be able to go back?" Without waiting for an answer, Ruthie demanded, "What did you see?"

"One question at a time," he told her mildly. "Yes, I _will_ go back, and if I keep plugging at it, I should be able to manage longer stays. After all, this isn't even a power unique to Avatars. My experience will stand me in good stead.

"As for what I saw, the police are interviewing Iris Crowe. What she's telling them may be interesting. So I'm diving back in. Right..._now!_"

The confidence he sent surging into that announcement swept him out of the trailer - and in the blink of an eye, he was once again outside the Crowes' parlor window. This time the invisible Avatar dispensed with the niceties and walked right in.

And at that moment, an inner door opened to reveal...Justin Crowe.

Not a body laid out in a casket. A living, breathing human being, clad in a cassock and seemingly in the pink of health!

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The shock thrust a sputtering Hack back into the trailer.

"What's wrong?" This time, the look on his face undoubtedly told Ruthie _something_ was.

He let out a string of curses. Then he calmed sufficiently to report, through clenched teeth, "Crowe's alive. Alive and apparently well."

The color drained from her face. "That can't be!" Shaking her head, she insisted, "I saw him dead, Hack! And it was Samson himself who checked for vital signs. He's the most competent person I know."

By now Hack was thinking clearly. "There's only one possible explanation. His Avatar son brought him back to life, just as my Avatar son did me. Crowe's son is still Prophet, but for some reason he chose to revive his father. That proves he's an adult who knows how to use his powers. And they're _both_ unimaginably dangerous."

"Oh my God." Ruthie gazed anxiously at Ben. Then she asked the question Hack was anticipating. "How come Crowe's in better shape than Ben, when he'd actually been _dead?_ You said Ben's wounds won't heal completely 'cause o' the kind o' weapon Crowe used. Didn't he have one as good to use against Crowe?"

"Yes, he did," Hack assured her. "It was as good, or better, _for the purpose of_ _killing the Usher_. If he hadn't struck correctly with the right kind of blade, Crowe wouldn't have died or even been wounded."

_Too bad I trusted Belyakov to make that clear to Ben. Him and his symbols...from what I've heard, his vagueness almost got Ben killed._

"But the way to kill the Usher," he explained, "was to stab him in the fork of his tree tattoo. A key point magically, not biologically. Ben's dagger didn't pierce his heart or any other vital organ. And he didn't lose as much blood from a single deep stab wound - with the blade probably in it until he was revived - as Ben did from great, gaping slashes."

Ruthie cursed, then asked distractedly, "What can we _do?_"

"I'm going back. I'll try to get a handle on what's happening, maybe get a look at his son."

"Hack - does the son's having revived him mean he's _there?_ The son, that is?"

"No. He could have done it from a distance. But I'm hoping he is there, and he'll show himself." He gave her hand a squeeze that was meant to be reassuring. Then, without another word, he plunged back into the maelstrom of New Canaan.

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He found himself in the Crowes' parlor, as invisible to his fellow Avatar as he was to the police. Considering everyone a suspect, he decided neither of the officers was young enough to be Crowe's son. They were interrogating the Reverend now; his sister sat stiffly on the couch, and the stolid maid was just..._there_, like a piece of furniture.

He made himself pay attention to what the men were saying. Crowe was claiming he'd had an epileptic seizure on the Ferris wheel, and his followers had panicked and begun rioting because they thought he'd been shot. Of course, all the subsequent deaths were the work of carnies! Fury over some unidentified carny's murder of a Reverend Balthus had driven Crowe to pursue "Benjamin St. John" - who'd pulled a knife on him. But after Crowe had fended St. John off by slashing him with a gardening tool - doing no serious damage, he was sure - he'd conveniently had another seizure and passed out.

Hack was seething. He knew he was hearing a pack of lies. But the cops were lapping it up.

The officers explained how they'd been confused by encountering _three_ "innocent" carnivals. Hack's reaction was a smirking _Bravo, Samson!_ It became apparent that the investigation, such as it was, was winding down, with everyone expressing insincere regret that no more could be done.

As the police prepared to leave, the thug Hack now knew as Varlyn Stroud strolled into the room. Hack glowered at him. _But vicious as he is, he's no more Crowe's son than I am._

Crowe expressed some initial surprise at seeing Stroud, then anger with him. It seemed even to Hack that the man was being inexplicably arrogant, ignoring Crowe and defying his orders.

But everyone else in the room was looking strangely at _Crowe_, not at Stroud...

Iris screamed.

And Stroud disappeared. Into thin air.

Crowe dropped into a chair, shaking like a leaf. "Wh-what?"

Hack was almost as stunned as Crowe, but he made himself concentrate on what was happening.

The senior police officer said awkwardly, "Uh, Brother Justin...I don't know who you think you've been talking to, but no one's come into the room. Whoever this Varlyn is, he's not here."

"He's dead!" Iris burst out. "Varlyn is dead!"

Two other men came racing in. _Bodyguards_, Hack guessed. _Neither one's young enough to be the son_.

They stopped, looking confused. "Sure he's dead, Miss Iris," one of them said reasonably. "Why are you screamin' about it? You've known he's dead for hours."

"Justin was talking to him!" she wailed. "As if he was here!"

"He was here," Crowe whispered. "He _was!_"

The maid emerged from her corner and set about getting rid of the police. "Everyone under a strain"..."not a police matter"...and so forth. The men seemed grateful she was giving them permission to leave.

Hack paid scant attention to that, or to her subsequent admission to Crowe that she'd accidentally killed an abusive Stroud. He was still grappling with the realization that _he and Crowe_ - but no one else - had seen a ghost.

_Can't be because we're both Avatars. If I'd always been able to see ghosts, I would have realized it before now. And Crowe's shock wasn't simply at Stroud's being dead - he'd never seen a ghost before, either._

_Neither of us killed the man, let alone both of us. So it wasn't a targeted haunting of his killers._

_There's only one other possibility. The two of us are able to see ghosts because we were both __**dead**__, and were brought back!_

Now that he'd grasped the idea, Hack found it intriguing rather than alarming.

_I can make sense of it_, he realized,_ because I know it's affecting two people, and I also know what we have in common. Crowe doesn't have a clue as to why this is suddenly happening to him._

_My God. He may not even realize he was dead!_

Focusing on the group around him again, he realized they were all heading for another room - which turned out to be the kitchen. He belatedly registered that they'd lost Iris at some point. But of far more interest was the man already sitting at the kitchen table. The _ghost_ sitting at the kitchen table.

Hack's reaction to seeing Wilfred Talbot Smith was a leer. _No regrets about killing you, my old __**false**__ friend! You got what you deserved. My only regret is that I obviously did what Crowe hoped I'd do - played into his hands. I should have left on foot after I killed you, instead of waiting for a chance to steal a car. But for all I knew, I could have been a thousand miles from civilization._

Crowe's response, on the other hand - to the ghost of a man _someone else_ had killed! - was that of a person on the verge of a breakdown. He screamed, babbled, and clung pathetically to the maid.

She seemed much more anxious to help, Hack noted, than did the bug-eyed, hastily retreating guards. He took a closer look at her, and guessed her to be in her early twenties. _Must be the woman he's banging at the moment. She doesn't look like much now, but I suppose she might be attractive when she's cleaned up._

He forgot about the young woman when Crowe began another string of babbling. Doubtless unaware he was speaking out loud, he maudlinly acknowledged having been indirectly to blame for Smith's death, and for having taken a callous risk with Stroud's life.

He fled back toward the parlor - and Hack was struck by inspiration. _If he's driven this nearly mad by the ghosts of men he didn't kill, I wonder how he'll react to the "ghost" of one he __**did**__ kill?_

He had his answer in less than a minute. He let Crowe see him outside the window - flyaway gray hair, bloody _blue_ scar ringing his neck - and the fearsome Usher of Destruction went into hysterics. He wound up blubbering in his paramour's arms.

Hack thought he'd seen the best part of the show. But he decided to stick around a few minutes longer - and was glad he had. Crowe closed his eyes for a few minutes, trying to rest. When he opened them, he saw - as Hack also did - a white-haired, pajama-clad man in a wheelchair.

This time he only stopped shrieking when he fell down in a faint.

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"The ghost-viewing is making him as crazy as a loon!" Hack gleefully informed Ruthie. "And it doesn't distress me at all, because there aren't any deaths for which I blame myself. I did kill Wilfred Talbot Smith. But under the circumstances, I don't have guilt feelings about it."

There was a strange look on her face. "You're sayin' this seein' ghosts is caused by a person's havin' been brought back from the dead?"

"Yes..." Belatedly, he realized _she_ had been brought back from the dead, and allowed to think she'd merely been "healed."

When he looked into her eyes, he realized he couldn't evade the question now. "Hack," she demanded, "was _I_ dead? Did Ben bring me back?"

He said simply, "Yes."

She thought about that for a few seconds. "Then...did Ben have some other reason for keepin' it from me, beyond just thinkin' the idea would scare me?"

"I don't know what you mean." _I __**wish**__ I didn't know what you mean._

Ruthie's exasperated snort told him she wasn't fooled. "Did he have to _kill someone else_ to bring me back? Like Lodz, who went missin' at just that time?"

Hack capitulated. "All right, I'll admit it. He did have to kill someone, but it wasn't unjust. Lodz had killed _you_."

"I figured that," she said absently. "I mean, I didn't know till now that I'd actually died, but I was sure it was him put that snake in my mendin'. On purpose."

Hack knew he had to get her back on track. "Did the ghost-viewing remind you of this, Ruthie? Do you experience it too?"

She nodded in appreciation of his not letting her ramble. "No," she said crisply. "Not now. But I did, for three or four months. I thought that if what happened to me really was the same as what's happenin' to you an' Crowe, you should know it wears off."

He gave a soft whistle. "Thanks for the tip. I'll take that into account."

"What are you plannin' to do next?"

Hack guessed she already knew. "Leave the troupe, Ruthie, as soon as I can scrounge up some clean clothes, and head back to New Canaan in the flesh.

"I won't have any trouble hiding in a community of 17,000. I'll make sure one man Crowe killed is around to 'haunt' him, whatever others may do!

"The truth is, my powers enable me to work illusions - appear and disappear, show different faces to different people - in my physical body as well as my astral. _And_ I can do real harm to enemies in my physical body. The only power I 'lose' is instantaneous travel."

"Ben needs you -"

"I don't think he's about to die, Ruthie. I can do more to help him back there, if only by identifying the new Dark Prophet."

"You believe he's there?"

Hack frowned. "At the moment, no. I think that if he were, he would have found a way to sit in on the police questioning of his father.

"But however far away he is, he _cares_ about that father, for some reason. And when word gets out, as it surely will, that Crowe's acting crazy, seeing ghosts everywhere..." He didn't have to finish the thought.

They exchanged smiles. Ever-so-faintly hopeful smiles.

Then he said, "I'll have to pound on the wall to get someone's attention, so I can borrow clean clothes. Hold Ben in your arms, will you, so the noise won't upset him?"

"Sure."

They both knew it wouldn't.

But Ruthie welcomed any excuse to hold Ben Hawkins in her arms...especially with his father's approval.

And _Hack_ knew _that_.

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The End


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